Not Bad Thanks is the stranger-than-fiction tale of a grass-roots basketball team’s refusal to let power struggles, tragic events, media scrutiny and lack of skill hinder their climb from the bottom of a city league. Spurred on by run-ins with the Harlem Globetrotters, Makybe Diva and a fugitive train robber, the dysfunctional group of blokes discover just how far the Australian traits of mateship and sporting obsession can take you.
Graeme Willingham’s first book is a creative merging of fact and fiction. Graeme feels he has been writing forever… as a journalist on regional and metropolitan newspapers in Victoria, news editor of a business weekly in London, Australian correspondent for several other UK publications, a public relations communicator and occasional travel writer.
His life in joining words began in Year 12 at Camperdown High School in Victoria’s south-west. During Monday-morning library time he’d write a report for local paper The Chronicle about his Under-18 football team; every member of the team in the prose, not just the customary standout players. Soon he was on-staff reporting on the senior game, in which he played as a winger, as well as his games with the local Yellowbellies basketball team.
Lindsay Gaze, Australian basketball legend
Chris Antsey, Australian basketball legend
Richard Hinds, ABC Sports
Gerard Whateley, SEN 1116
Chris Ryan, 3AW Macquarie Media
Alan Hickey, 5AA Adelaide
Rafael Epstein, ABC Melbourne
Basketball blog -- www.botinagy.com
Wil Anderson – WILOSOPHY podcast
The Yorker – Melbourne Cricket Club Library magazine